Friday, August 08, 2008

Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music

Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music on P.O.V. at PBS. "...In 1968, Robert Elfstrom (who went on to an award-winning career as a cinematographer and director) had the foresight to make a documentary on Cash — and the luck to strike up a warm and candid rapport with the temperamental singer. By then, Cash, who had begun his career in the late 1950s, had won over country music audiences with his uniquely intense "underdog" ballads and was experiencing the first of several crossover successes withthe album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. He had also been through early bouts of 'fast living' — alcohol and drugs — and had recently married the great love and stabilizing force in his life, June Carter (of the Carter Family Singers). Elfstrom's Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, made vérité-style over several months in late 1968 and early 1969, both on and off the road, remains the definitive portrait of a great American troubadour at the peak of his powers."